Donor Stories

Innovation in Oil and Gas Production

Hess has been using technology to serve its customers and
create value since the company began in the 1930s.

That’s when 19-year-old Leon Hess of Asbury Park, New
Jersey, bought a second-hand oil delivery truck and then installed heaters to
warm and thin the heavy industrial oil. This allowed it to flow more easily,
which sped up delivery and enabled Leon to serve more customers more quickly.

Technological ingenuity has played a role in each stage of
the company’s growth—from exploration of oil fields to building pipelines, from
deepwater and horizontal drilling to terminal delivery and asset optimization.

Hess has made an incredible $4.4 million investment in UW,
which will be doubled by $4.4 million in state matching funds, for a Nano
Resolution Imaging Laboratory.

The University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources, with
Dr. Mohammad Piri, has established a program to investigate the flow of oil and
gas through tight shale and sandstone at macro, micro, and nano scales. The
macro- and micro-scale laboratories are in place, and Hess’s contribution
supports the nano-scale laboratory with the purchase of a nano CT scanner and
electron microscope, among other things. The state matching portion will build
the Energy Engineering Research Facility that will house this research, which
is the subject of a governor’s task force.

“The partnership with Hess represents an outstanding
achievement for UW,” says Mark Northam, Director of the School of Energy Resources.
“Hess is a clear leader in applying technology to develop unconventional
reservoirs. We are honored that they chose UW to collaborate with in creating
fundamental understanding about how fluids move through tight rocks. This
collaboration signals a bright future for UW and for Hess.”

Hess recognizes that consistent and cutting edge technology solutions
and continuous process improvement are fundamentally important to their
business, including more effective exploitation of unconventional reservoirs.
The company devoted $2.5 billion in unconventional reservoir research and
development in 2010 alone.

Why UW? Because the University of Wyoming is on the leading
edge of research into unconventional reservoirs, which has the potential to
make huge advances in energy production. Because UW’s dedicated research teams
are interdisciplinary, which allows for real breakthroughs in technology.
Because the State of Wyoming also supports and invests in its university and
energy research. Because UW is committed to public-private partnerships like
Hess’s that advance our shared energy future.